Topic: Amazon

Nearly 1,000 authors affected by the onging e-book spat between Amazon and Hachette have signed their names to a letter -- set to run as a full-page advertisement in the Sunday New York Times later this week -- imploring the online retailer to settle the dispute and calling on readers to voice their displeasure directly to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

On the same day that Amazon begins to ship its new, widely-panned Fire Phone to consumers, shares of the online retailing giant are trading down nearly 10 percent after the company posted a $126 million loss on nearly $20 billion in sales in its fiscal second quarter.

As e-commerce behemoth Amazon gears up for the release of its first-ever smartphone on Friday, technology journalists have begun to weigh in with their thoughts on the device -- and the returns don't look good for Jeff Bezos's brainchild.

While the digital music market has been trending toward monthly subscription services for unlimited access, Amazon is now trying the same approach with its dominance in the ebook market, allowing subscribers to read as much as they want for $10 per month.

Apple continues to dominate as the platform of choice among mobile buyers, with iOS representing 54 percent of all phone orders and 80 percent of tablet transactions as the market approaches $50 billion this year.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday announced that it has filed suit against retail colossus Amazon, alleging that the company allowed children to rack up millions of dollars in unauthorized in-app purchases through the Amazon Appstore -- charges similar to those brought against Apple last year.

A report published on Wednesday claims set-top media streamers like the Apple TV will be in one out of every four homes by 2015, but market growth of Apple's device is being outpaced by sector giant Roku, at least in the U.S.

More than a month after interrupting sales of books from major publisher Hachette in a dispute over e-book pricing, Amazon has proposed a temporary arrangement in which it would return sales to normal and funnel 100 percent of the revenue directly to authors until the two parties reach an agreement.

Hachette is not the only imprint to find itself under Amazon's thumb as the online retailing giant has begun turning the heat up on smaller publishers in the U.K., demanding terms that one publishing executive likened to a "form of assisted suicide for the industry."

When Amazon launched its Kindle Fire in 2011, the mini tablet's most compelling feature was its discounted low price. With its latest Fire Phone introduction, Amazon has sought to "reverse the ratchet," attempting to distance itself from Android's cheap identity.

Amazon announced its long awaited entrance into the smartphone market on Wednesday in unveiling the new Fire Phone, a device the retailer plans to pit against Apple's iPhone by integrating advanced head tracking technology for dynamic 3D content viewing, as well as new scanning functions that intelligently interpret data from the physical world.

With publishing house Hachette locked in a battle with Amazon that has seen the imprint's titles pulled from Amazon's virtual shelves, Apple's iBookstore has become the next-best place for readers to shop as a number of Hachette e-books are now discounted to just $9.99.

Amazon has continued to refuse sales of certain products in its efforts to gain leverage in negotiations with content providers, this time blocking preorders of physical copies of popular upcoming releases from Warner Home Video, including blockbuster hits "The Lego Movie" and "300: Rise of an Empire."

Amazon's official Kindle app for iPad and iPhone has been updated to include integration with audio versions of titles when purchased through the service Audible, as well as cloud syncing with Whispersync for Voice.

Amazon on Wednesday announced it will be holding a special media event on June 18 for an as-yet-unannounced product that many expect will be the Internet retailer's first foray into the smartphone business.

After blocking preorders and delaying shipments for titles in the midst of ongoing negotiations with publisher Hachette, Amazon has now spoken out on the dispute, attempting to portray its decisions as advantageous to customers, while also admitting that the issues are not likely to be solved soon.

Amazon is currently in the midst of a fight with Hachette, one of the so-called "Big Five" largest publishing companies, and has stopped taking preorders for high-profile upcoming titles, including the latest from "Harry Potter" series author J.K. Rowling.

When Apple announced its most recent quarterly earnings, the worst news out of Cupertino was that sales of iPads weren't greater than in the year-ago quarter, a fact that a few pundits have now jumped on to declare that "Apple's iPad Businesses Is Collapsing." That's wrong, here's why.